Bernard BUFFET (1928-1999). - Lot 82

Bernard BUFFET (1928-1999). Clown - le cirque, l'Homme-Orchestre - 1966. Pencil, gouache and mixed media on paper mounted on isorel panel. Signed and dated lower right, and titled "L'Homme Orchestre" upper left. H_65 cm W_50 cm With its certificate of authenticity from Galerie Maurice Garnier dated March 26, 2016, signed by Ida Garnier and Jacques Gasbarian. Provenance: - Wally Findlay Galleries, Inc, New York, acquired in the 1970s. - Sotheby's New York Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale, May 17, 2017. Note: Bernard Buffet's Clowns are among the artist's most emblematic subjects. Melancholic, grotesque and angular, Buffet introduced these unsettling masks into his work from 1955 onwards. His compositions were an immediate success: exhibited in Paris (Galerie Drouant-David) in 1956, he even acquired a private room in the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale that same year. Then, in 1967, the artist produced 44 color lithographs for "Mon Cirque" published by Fernand Mourlot, including "L'Homme-Orchestre". These were exhibited in October at Galerie Maurice Garnier. Our work - reproduced as a lithograph - was thus executed during this period. His body of work from this period also includes several canvases and compositions of clowns on yellow backgrounds (cf. Clown et Pot de Fleur, 1967, oil on canvas, Musée Bernard Buffet Surugadaira, Japan). Bibliography : - PICHON (Yann). Bernard Buffet. Catalog raisonné (1943-1999). Maurice Garnier, Paris, 1986. - BOURET (Jean). Le Cirque par Bernard Buffet. Art et Style, 1956.